Supervising and recovering software components associated with medical diagnostics instruments

• US 10,049,013 B2
• Filed: 09/16/2016
• Issued: 08/14/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 12/06/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Bio-Rad Laboratories Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Bio-Rad Laboratories Incorporated
• Inventors: Gabel, Shlomo, Tamir, Eliran
• Primary Examiner(s): Bonzo, Bryce P
• Assistant Examiner(s): Arcos, Jeison C
• Application Number:
  US15/268,250
• Publication Number:
  US 20170031766A1
• Time in Patent Office: 697 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0736 in functional embedded systems, i.e. in a data processing system designed as a combination of hardware and software dedicated to performing a certain function testing or monitoring of automated control systems G05B23/02
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0793 Remedial or corrective actions recovery from an exception in an instruction pipeline G06F9/3861; by retry G06F11/1402; for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity H04L69/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1438 Restarting or rejuvenating
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/805 Real-time
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/82 Solving problems relating to consistency ensuring consistency in mirrored systems G06F11/2064
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/40 for the management of medical equipment or devices, e.g. scheduling maintenance or upgrades
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/20 for computer-aided diagnosis, e.g. based on medical expert systems

Abstract

A system for applying a recovery mechanism to a network of medical diagnostics instruments is provided herein. The system includes the following: a plurality of medical diagnostics instruments, each associated with a network connected component; a plurality of communication modules, each associated with a corresponding one of the plurality of network connected components, wherein each one of the plurality of communication modules is arranged to report on malfunctioning components that are network connected with the corresponding component, and a recovery module, configured to: (i) obtain reports from the communication modules; (ii) re-establish the malfunctioning components; and (iii) notify all communication modules of the re-establishment of the malfunctioning components, wherein the communication modules are further configured to re-establish connection between the corresponding components and the re-established components.

Claims

1. A system for applying a recovery mechanism to a plurality of computer software components that control medical diagnostics, the system comprising:

a plurality of medical diagnostics instruments, each associated with a computer software component;

a plurality of communication modules, wherein each one of the plurality of communication modules is

associated with a corresponding one of the plurality of the computer software components, and

configured to report on the corresponding one of the computer software components; and

a recovery module, configured to;

(i) obtain reports from the plurality of communication modules, the reports enabling a determination of whether at least one computer software component is malfunctioning;

(ii) reload the at least one malfunctioning computer software component according to a priority of the at least one malfunctioning computer software component, and

(iii) notify all communication modules of the reloading of the at least one malfunctioning computer software component;

wherein each one of the plurality of communication modules is further configured to re-establish a connection between the corresponding one of the plurality of the computer software components and the at least one reloaded computer software component.

2. The system according to claim 1, wherein the recovery module is configured to reload the at least one malfunctioning computer software component of a first medical diagnostics instrument by creating, at a communication layer, a client for providing a service to another computer software component of a second medical diagnostic instrument.

3. The system according to claim 1, wherein the recovery module is further configured to reload critical malfunctioning computer software components prior to other malfunctioning computer software components, according to specified criteria.

4. The system according to claim 1, wherein the recovery module is further configured to reload the malfunctioning computer software components groupwise, according to specified inter-dependencies among network-connected components.

5. The system according to claim 1, wherein the recovery module is further configured to terminate an operation of one or more network-connected computer software components upon failure of a reloading thereof.

6. The system according to claim 1, wherein the recovery module is further configured to carry out the notifying based on a predefined priority order of computer software components.

7. The system according to claim 1, wherein the recovery module is configured to reload the at least one malfunctioning computer software component according to the priority of the at least one malfunctioning computer software component by determining an indication of an order by which the at least one malfunctioning computer software component is to be reloaded.

8. A method of applying a recovery mechanism to software components that control medical diagnostics instruments, the method comprising:

monitoring a plurality of medical diagnostics instruments, each medical diagnostic instrument associated with a software component via a plurality of communication modules;

obtaining a report from a communication module of the plurality of communication modules, the report enabling a determination of whether at least one software component is malfunctioning;

determining, from an obtained report, an occurrence of a malfunctioning of the at least one software component;

reloading the at least one malfunctioning software component after analyzing the obtained report, wherein the reloading of the at least one malfunctioning software component is performed according to a priority of the at least one malfunctioning software component;

notifying all communication modules of the plurality of communication modules of the reloading of the at least one malfunctioning software component; and

re-establishing a connection between the software components and the at least one reloaded software component, via the plurality of communication modules.

9. The method according to claim 8, wherein the reloading a malfunctioning software component of a first medical diagnostics instrument comprises creating, at a communication layer, a client for providing a service to another software component of a second medical diagnostic instrument.

10. The method according to claim 8, wherein the reloading of the at least one malfunctioning software component comprises reloading a plurality of malfunctioning software components, such that reloading one of the plurality of malfunctioning software components occurs prior to reloading another of the plurality of malfunctioning software components, according to specified criteria.

11. The method according to claim 8, wherein the reloading of the at least one malfunctioning software component is carried out according to specified inter-dependencies among network-connected software components.

12. The method according to claim 8, further comprising terminating an operation of one or more network-connected software components upon failure of a reloading thereof.

13. The method according to claim 8, wherein the notifying is carried out based on a predefined priority order of software components.

14. The method according to claim 8, wherein the priority of the at least one malfunctioning software component comprises an indication of an order by which the at least one malfunctioning software component is to be reloaded.

15. A computer program product embodied on a non-transitory computer-readable medium, the computer program product comprising computer code for:

monitoring software components associated with a medical instrument, each medical instrument associated with a software component via a plurality of communication modules;

obtaining a report from a communication module of the plurality of communication modules, the report enabling a determination of whether at least one software component is malfunctioning;

determining, from the obtained report, an occurrence of a malfunctioning of the at least one software component;

reloading the at least one malfunctioning software component after analyzing the obtained report, wherein the reloading the at least one malfunctioning software component is performed according to a priority of at least one malfunctioning software component;

notifying all communication modules of the plurality of communication modules of the reloading of the at least one malfunctioning software component; and

re-establishing a connection between the software components and the at least one reloaded software component, via the plurality of communication modules.

16. The computer program product according to claim 15, wherein computer code for reloading a malfunctioning software component of a first medical diagnostics instrument comprises computer code for creating, at a communication layer, a client for providing a service to another software component of a second medical diagnostic instrument.

17. The computer program product according to claim 15, wherein the computer code for the reloading of the at least one malfunctioning software component is carried out such that the at least one malfunctioning software component is reloaded prior to other malfunctioning software components, according to specified criteria.

18. The computer program product according to claim 15, wherein the computer code for the reloading of the at least one malfunctioning software component is carried out group-wise, according to specified inter-dependencies among network-connected software components.

19. The computer program product according to claim 15, further comprising computer code for terminating an operation of one or more network-connected software components upon failure of a reloading thereof.

20. The computer program product according to claim 15, wherein the computer code for the notifying comprises computer code for carrying out the notifying based on a predefined priority order of software components.